It looks like being a summer without any big Arsenal news.
But plenty is happening elsewhere.
In the past three days, Neil Warnock has left Sheffield United, Paul Jewell has quit Wigan, Sam Allardyce has gone to Newcastle, and Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce has been sacked as a Thai billionaire buys the club for £100 million and promises £50 million for new players.
Deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is hoping that he will not be convicted of tax evasion, since he might be jailed for ten years.
As PM he was big in Thailand and as the owner of City he hopes to be big in Thailand again. Does he think Manchester City can put Thailand on the map ? Or just keep him out of clink ?
So, as always, the Premiership is a circus.
Bolton will drop like a stone now that Sam Allardyce has gone but Newcastle won’t rise like the phoenix. Newcastle is bigger than Bolton, so Big Sam has become Bigger Sam overnight. He arrived yesterday in a helicopter, so he must think he is Bill Clinton.
Clearly, Bigger Sam is a gift from heaven for Sky Sports News, a mouthy “personality” manager who is moving up to a more popular club. We are assured that his three-year contract has no “get-out clause” if England come calling, as if they would. He might go over the top, as Mike Walker did when he went from Norwich to Everton and lasted ten months. Most managers have one box of tricks. Will Sam’s box of tricks suit Newcastle?
Carlos Tevez kept West Ham up and his case is being taken to FIFA, which is hilarious.I’m so bored with this story now. Come on, guys ! Sheffield United, Watford and Charlton were relegated. Next ! Forget Tevez, get on with your lives. FIFA will do nothing.
Personally, I detest third party ownership of footballers. That deal stank from day one and nothing was done at the time. As long ago as September 4, 2006, I read a Nick Harris story in The Independent which filled me with horror. It was obvious. It was more than obvious- it stood out like a tarantula on a wedding cake.
This was the line that stopped me in my tracks :
Joorabchian, 35, an Iranian-born, London-based businessman, sees the Tevez and Mascherano deals as a new blueprint for doing transfers.
A NEW BLUEPRINT FOR DOING TRANSFERS ?
WHAT ??? I thought :You cannot be serious ! That would be the end of the English way of life as we know it !
If Richard Scudamore can’t enforce his own Premier League regulations, it’s a farce.It’s a joke. Why should we believe a word he says?
In among all this chaos, fear and loathing, Arsenal is a model of sanity, an oasis of calm. Well, almost.
Your favourite club announced the sale of Muamba on the same day they announced the signing of Lukasz Fabianski, a 22-year old Polish goalkeeper.
Have you ever seen more tidy book-keeping than that? Sell a midfielder for £2 million, buy a goalkeeper for £2 million ? If Muamba is successful at Birmingham, collect a further £2 million. If Fabianski is successful in five years time but gets restless, flog him for £8 million.
This kind of transfer activity is prudent and strategic. This is what Danny Fiszman calls being “financially conservative.”
Or looking at it another way, Fabianski’s cost of £2 million is the matchday receipts for one game at the Emirates. The money from the Fulham game bought this new goalkeeper.
So Arsene Wenger is an auditor’s dream. He wants to balance Arsenal’s books because he feels responsible for the debt he encouraged the club to get into.The big stadium was his idea and his success made it possible, but he always knew he would have to skimp on players between 2004 and 2008.
I think that one dark and sleepless night he made a deal with himself. He said something like, ” I’ve got broad shoulders, I’m not as young as I was but I’ll take the flak, we can finish third or fourth for five years and have a few Cup runs and turn a medium-sized club into the biggest football club in the biggest city in Europe, and we will then be secure near the top of the richest league in the world. It’s a Herculean task and nobody but me would have had the vision to imagine it, or the stamina to see it through and guide Arsenal into a new era in a new stadium with wonderful, glorious trophy-winning teams.”
AND THAT COULD HAPPEN !
It could all work out as planned.
But in the meantime we are watching a talented but unbalanced young team which can’t win anything
How far can Arsene go with the players he now has? Who knows? Right now, I’m not too optimistic about next year. And maybe he knows this squad’s going nowhere and he’s just trying to get through this five-year period without spending any money. If his recent disciplinary record is anything to go by, the truth may have started to dawn on him. Because Arsene Wenger, the cool Professor, has never been in disciplinary trouble with the FA three times in one season. There was even a rumour that he offered to resign after the Alan Pardew confrontation at West Ham. While fans and pundits thought the team needed some experienced players, Arsene kept saying he had a strong belief in this team.
Will next season be better? It boils down to : was 2006-2007 a season in the bank ?
If it was, next season could be better. Can Arsenal improve and finish second in 2008? Or will they need a flying start and luck with injuries to finish fourth again?
Can Aston Villa or Everton come out of the pack and claim fourth place?Or are Spurs now the bigger threat thanks to Berbatov’s 23 goals and Robbie Keane’s 22? If they sell Defoe, replace Carrick with another classy passer, and keep King fit all season, could Spurs challenge Arsenal ? I doubt it. But stranger things have happened in this whacky old game.
My usual view regarding next season is : Ask me on September 1st, after the transfer window has closed, when I can see the squads each manager has assembled.
Before the start of 2005-2006 my answer was : If Arsene can finish second with this squad, he must know something I don’t.
He finished fourth on the last day.